


Best Friend Meets Conundrum

by jaded_jane



Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: Blink And You Miss It Slash, F/M, Light Angst, M/M, Missing Scenes, Yearbook spoilers, extras make appearances, mentions of possible lucaya
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-24
Updated: 2015-11-24
Packaged: 2018-05-03 03:17:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5274542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaded_jane/pseuds/jaded_jane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Each of the core four reacts differently to Maya and Lucas being named "Favorite Couple." How will that impact their relationships with the others?</p><p>Missing scene-type snippets that fit within GMYearbook.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Best Friend Meets Conundrum

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by my very best beta, suspensionofdisbelief. Thank you for everything, K!  
> Any remaining mistakes are my own. Characters belong to Disney, etc.
> 
> Please note that these pieces are not in chronological order and are independent of each other.

“Why’d you do it?” Maya smirks a little when Farkle jumps at the sound of her voice. 

She’s allowed some fun as she’s been waiting on Farkle’s exit from Riley’s room for forty-five minutes. Three purple cat sketches, one surprise superlative, and twelve minutes of lying on the couch staring at the ceiling enjoying being named “Most Creative” later, Maya was growing bored. 

Thankfully that’s when Farkle emerges. 

“Do what?” Farkle counters.

Maya rolls her eyes, sitting up. “Walk me home, Donnie,” she demands, humoring him by addressing him with his new name. “Tell me about your talk with Riley.” She stands, loops her arm through his, and half-drags him out of the apartment and eventually through the double set of building doors into her favorite time of day, the Golden Hour. 

Except for today. Nothing about today has been her favorite anything.

New York has been ensconced in clouds since roughly the time Yindra congratulated Maya on being one-half of the couple voted as most favorite. Coincidently, Riley went into hiding around that time too.

Maya is still churning with the devastation she felt when she was forced into invoking Ring Power for the bay window to be opened. She hopes Farkle straightened Riley out, reminding her how Lucas only has eyes for her. 

Maya glances over at Farkle, noting how exhausted and defeated he appears. Her heart sinks with his next words.

“She’s decided that caring is for chumps; I gotta say that I agree with her.”

“I know you don’t mean that,” Maya murmurs. “I found my superlative.”

Farkle pauses mid-stride, forcing Maya to follow suit. “It was Riley’s idea. She wanted to show the school your talent. I just supplied the picture.” He pulls her off to the edge of the sidewalk, out of the way of foot traffic near the building, before taking the drawing in question from his back pocket. “The crease marks are horrific, but I photoshopped them out,” he confides as he hands her the original sketch she made of the starry sky the night they’d been at the library at the beginning of seventh grade.

Maya stares at the yellow ruled paper for a long moment. “Please come back, Farkle. Be the guy who kept demanding I look him in the eyes so we could connect. Be the guy who asks me out to dances and is okay even though I never say yes. Be the guy I can always count on,” she begs, peering up at him. “You know I can’t get through to Riley without you. What do you expect me to do?”

Farkle shrugs, “Maybe you should join us.” He takes her artwork from her, carefully folding it again before sliding it home in his right rear pocket. “I don’t want to lose it or you; you’re both very valuable to me,” he says when he sees the disbelief on Maya’s face. 

Suddenly, Maya feels tired. Too many ups and downs; time to call it a day. “Goodnight, Donnie,” she calls out, strolling towards the crosswalk. The nearest subway stop is on the next block. Thankfully it’s the line she needs because Maya’s not in the mood to be riding or walking for longer than she has to.

She has too much to think about as it is.

***

As soon as Riley enters the gymnasium, Maya acts as if nothing is different about her best friend even though she’s five minutes late and looking crazy in her wig and gym uniform. Maya had hoped that yelling at Riley to “Come back. Come back right now!” would have made a greater impact and actually forced Riley to return to herself.

She wants to prevent any wreckage that could occur should Riley decide she likes being Morotia M. Black more than Riley No-Middle-Name Matthews so she speaks to Riley like she would any other day. Maya talks during gym class, trying to entice the black swan to fly the coup (“You should see how quickly the bunnies are growing! And the puppies are chasing their tails; come see the pictures!”), and all that accomplishes is Coach Kelly banishing Maya to the bleachers. “Shut it and sit down, Hart! Stop distracting Matthews! She’s moving so well!”

Maya buckles down and keeps up a steady stream of chatter throughout the next two periods, art and science (“Great job, Pumpkin. I love the black cat montage. You know what would make it less dark...” and “Let me tell why photosynthesis should apply to people….” respectively), only being quiet during algebra. Mr. Spinelli’s been working out an equidistant meeting location problem for Sarah, Darby, Dave and Yogi for days and had promised them an answer today, if only so everyone could move on to the quadratic formula.

Maya smiles when she hears an angry mutter from her right that sounds suspiciously like, “ _Dave_.” The last time that happened Riley was refusing to be anyone other than herself. Maya’s plan is working.

Geralynn helps out at lunch by giving Riley an extra large greeting and refusing to serve the strangely-graceful girl until she acknowledges the sassy lunch lady. Maya watches Riley eye Geralynn until her love of fishsticks gets the best of Riley, triggering a huge smile from her while she says hello. As Riley moves to their table, Maya sneaks into the kitchen. “Thank you,” she enthuses, hugging the big lady and running back out before Riley can get too far.

Maya does her best to talk through lunch, except she’s hungry as well. She chews and speaks- telling Riley how flabbergasted Coach Kelly looked when Riley was playing volleyball- spirits rising each minute that Riley isn’t actively frowning. Before she knows it, the bell is ringing and Riley’s sporting the dimples of a suppressed smile as they walk to English.

“Today we’re going to be discussing webcomics,” Harper announces when they enter her classroom. “One of my favorites is a webcomic-blog hybrid called [Hyperbole and a Half](http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html) and in particular, an entry entitled ‘The Alot is Better Than You at Everything.’ Grab a copy on your way by and read it to yourselves quietly.”

Maya likes and respects Harper too much to ignore her and does what she says despite it setting back her Riley plan. Maya can’t begrudge the teacher when Harper tells the class that they will be doing their own panel featuring the grammatical error of their choice.

Maya is looking forward to her homework...again. It’s such a weird feeling.

The other weird feeling named Morotia is slowly subsiding. Maya can see the light in Riley’s eyes and spends the after-school journey to the Matthews’ apartment telling Riley all the things she would miss if Morotia took over Riley’s existence- her smile, her infectious joy, her beliefs, her purple cats, all the color in her face. “Seriously, Riley, are you ready to be pale for the rest of your life? You tan up so nicely!”

When they arrive at the bay window and Riley doesn’t stop her from tugging down the black fabric around it, Maya knows she’s won.

She has her Riles again.

***

“Hey, Riley.”

She opens her mouth to respond, but she ends up greeting Farkle with a full face, wow-that’s-a-lot-of teeth-you-have kind of yawn, managing to ineffectually cover her mouth halfway through. “Oops. Sorry, Farkle. Good morning,” she says from behind it still. “I’m not used to being up this early.” Riley walks to a nearby table in the otherwise empty library, squirting some hand sanitizer found there into her hands and rubbing them together vigorously as she says, “At least Dad brought me in, I might have fallen asleep on the subway!” 

She hears Farkle chuckle and watches him grab an errant yearbook, opening it while she continues making sure that all the other books have been packed up and ready for distribution. She finds more in a dark corner and moves past Farkle to get them.

“Can I tell you something, Riley? Something that we keep just between us?”

Riley stops cold, hands splayed over yearbook covers at the top of the stack. Her back is to Farkle and she wonders if he’ll clam up if she turns around. She decides not to risk it.

She wants to ask if this is about Lucas and how Farkle seems to admire him more than friends usually do. She won’t fight Farkle for Lucas’ attention any more than she fought Missy Bradford for Lucas’ attention. 

Which is to say, not at all.

She nods, trying to retain a blank expression even if Farkle can’t see it. _Friends are the most important thing_ , she reminds herself. She’s been telling herself that for a few weeks. 

It’s become her new mantra.

“Ever since I saw that I was being named ‘Most Likely To Be Farkle’ _again_ , I decided it’s time for a change. So I’m going to start dressing a bit differently and maybe acting a little different too. I just hope that you can remember that no matter what happens, I’m still me. Can you do that, Riley?”

Riley has to face him now- it’s the only way she’ll know if he’s serious about this- so she turns and studies his face. She’s only seen this expression on Farkle when he talks about Belgium in 1831 and what her father’s take on those events could be.

The ambient sounds of students trickling into John Quincy Adams begin filtering into the library and it helps snap Riley out of her reflection. She meets Farkle’s eye and nods again, slowly this time. “I trust you, Farkle. Don’t let me down.”

“Oh, I might-”

The library’s door squeaking open and her dad’s “How ya doin’?” drowns out whatever Farkle’s saying. “Are you guys ready to distribute the yearbooks? Need any help?”

Riley spins to grab the dwindling stack in the corner and adds them to an open box on the table close to the door. If she rolls her eyes slightly, that’s between her and the walls. “We’re good, Dad,” she tells him. “See you in class!” is added when he doesn’t move. 

Once he leaves, after grabbing a copy for himself, Riley grabs a box and promptly calls out, “A little help here?” when she determines she did too good of a job packing it and they start pulling out books to leave behind for the moment.

It’s about halfway full when they can comfortably lift and carry the large box. Riley struggles in her hold on it when Farkle attempts to get the door open, but it’s smooth-sailing afterward. She’s forced to stop when Farkle pauses at the corner to the hallway which houses not only her father’s classroom, but contains their best friends. “Are you ready?” she whispers.

“More than you could possibly know.” 

***

Farkle wants to scream when Lucas asks “Why’d you do it?” just moments after they sit down at Topanga’s.

He vows to himself that he will, the very next time that question gets lobbed at him. In the meantime, Farkle picks up his juice from the table in front of them and sips slowly from its straw in an effort to let some of his frustration seep out of his body.

“Can I get you boys anything else?”

Farkle lets the straw fall from his lips, side-eyeing Lucas and mentally calculating all the ways he can stall. He peers up, mouth open, ready to start ordering the entire menu when Mr. Perfect shuts down that option.

“No, thank you, Ms. Hart.”

Farkle scowls at his juice bottle as his wife’s mother strides away. He doesn’t need eyes to know Katy went over to Topanga. Last he knew, Maya was trying to be Riley and got scared, and Riley was trying, and failing, to be a dark person named Morotia. 

Farkle hopes the women are giving each other pep talks about getting through the children’s identity crises. 

“Farkle!” Farkle snaps out of his musings as Lucas holds the yearbook out to him. “Why did you do this?”

Farkle’s eyes drop to the open page- page forty-two. The page where he placed the photos of Sarah and Yogi, as well as Darby in her detention-riot warpaint and declaring her “most fierce.” The page that has caused much tension and contention among his friends. 

Because the snapshot of Darby is alongside the picture of Lucas and Maya engaged in their usual banter during The Great Sugar High of 2014. The picture’s angle is wrong; it doesn’t accurately portray the situation entirely. Maya’s crazed face draws the beholder’s eye, but it should be noted Lucas had been smiling at her the whole time. 

Farkle knows, he had a ringside seat for the incident.

Oh, and Farkle had been the one to nominate them as “favorite couple.”

From Lucas’ expression, Farkle ascertains that the scholar athlete is aware of it. The next words Farkle hears confirm this notion.

“You and Riley were editors, Farkle. I don’t believe you didn’t know what was going where and on what page. Why are there pictures of Maya and me in the yearbook?”

There are only two, Farkle wants to argue, but he shrugs his shoulders. “You two are together a lot. It’s a lot harder to find one where you aren’t with each other.” 

He can feel Lucas’ eyes boring a hole into the side of his face, wanting to challenge Farkle’s words when they both hear it- the uneven, stumbling gait that belongs to their best friend.

“Could it be?” Lucas wonders aloud. 

Farkle nods excitedly. The whisper sounds of Morotia’s gliding feet had been seriously unsettling. 

The confident steps of a newly-returned Riley Matthews and a sure-footed Maya Hart echo in the alley outside the cafe. As the footfalls become louder, Lucas and Farkle share a look and an unspoken agreement to forget Lucas’ query passes between them. 

Farkle breathes a sigh of relief when the girls come to a stop next to him and pronounce themselves fixed.

All is right in his world once more.

***

His whole world has exploded and he has no friends in New York he can talk to. Or that are talking to him. Or haven’t gone plumb crazy.

A flash of blonde curls near the cafeteria has him reevaluating those thoughts and ducking into a partially hidden doorway, to greet an old acquaintance. “Hey, Harley.”

Harley raises his head from the bucket he’s dumping and smiles. “Hey there, Lucas. What brings you by to my humble abode?”

Lucas looks at the floor, admiring the cleanliness of the small space. “You helped Farkle hide from Billy. I was hoping you’d help me hide from the eighth grade,” he pauses when he sees an incredulous expression on the janitor. “Just for lunch.”

The sound of retching coming from down the hall draws sighs from both males. 

“That’s my call,” Harley says. “Unless you want to go?”

Lucas steps back, shaking his head. “I’d like to stay here if you don’t mind.”

Less than a minute later, Lucas is alone in the oversized closet peering through the sliver left between the door and its frame. He can see Maya sitting all alone, staring at the object that has caused every bit of chaos that is currently overtaking his life.

The more he watches her, the more he feels compelled to go to her. 

Maybe he can get advice on how to fix things with Riley so she can fix Farkle. Maybe she’ll laugh with him about the whole class, if not the whole school, thinking of them as a couple. Maybe…

_Maybe she likes him and that’s why she’s always in his face._

The errant idea tickles his brain and it’s so absurd that he starts to laugh. He catches sight of her, Maya’s gaze locked in on right where Lucas is standing and he freezes, suddenly not finding anything funny as the laughter dies on his lips.

Her face is open, irritation clearly readable and he realizes that she was like that with him in the hallway that very morning. No mocking, no insults, just companionable silence as they waited for their friends. 

It was a refreshing change. 

Lucas waits for her to charge over and yell at him; she’s always been the one to call the shots in their relationship. Honestly, he’s okay with that. It means he knows where he stands with her.

Or he did.

Because the girl seated at a table made for four, by herself, appearing to be just as lost as he is, is not the girl he knows.

It’s not the girl he admires.

And Lucas is not okay with that.

*** 

Riley sits quietly, absorbing the waves of awkward rolling off of Lucas as he tries to dig himself out of the Maya-shaped hole he’s falling deeper into as he tries to convince Maya that she needs to be herself and not Riley. He mentions Maya’s home life and Riley can feel a spark of rage catch hold of her insides on behalf of her best friend.

Devastation is written all over Maya’s wide blue eyes and gaping mouth; Riley knows this without glancing over and it kills her. Being someone new doesn’t change that.

Unsurprisingly, her father stands near the board appearing just as flabbergasted about the goings-on and not doing much of anything. What can you expect from a man who minutes ago entered the room with a hand over his eyes, pleading, “Please be back to normal” and gave up after being addressed as “Hambone” by Farkle masquerading as a Donnie Barnes?

Riley’s newly introduced bangs tickle her forehead, prompting her to reach up to relieve the itch and finally Lucas stops speaking. She side-eyes the scene and sees Lucas looking desperately towards herself and Farkle before shifting back towards his unintended victim, asking “A little help please?”

“I think people should be the best person they can be,” Farkle interjects, helping no one. Lucas slinks back to his seat, head bowed in defeat after Maya declares, “Riley Matthews is the best person I can be.”

Riley keeps her eyes fixed to a spot on the wall to the right of the doorway, pondering the situation and plotting its solution for the next forty minutes, all the while intermittently tugging lightly on the wig now that her scalp has begun to sweat. She grabs her backpack as the classroom empties mere seconds after the bell rings, her father shouting about homework over the excited chatter of her classmates as they head to gym.

She steps out into the bustling hallway, intent on carrying out her plan. Her target slides out of sight, probably intent on getting his uniform from his locker and to the locker room before it gets too crazy. 

Riley moves against the flow of traffic, ignoring the rumbling protests of her stomach as she jogs up the stairs. A quick turn around the corner, and there he stands, face obscured by the locker door, but Riley would know that ramrod straight posture anywhere.

“You messed up, Huckleberry,” she calls out, the words feeling strange and foreign on her tongue. 

Any remaining straggling students now run for their lives since the whole school has heard things about the infamous quartet. Riley glues her eyes to the stock-still body she came in search of, even though her heart is beating triple-time. She walks up to Lucas, keeping the door between them because as much as she’s here about her best friend and how he hurt her, she wants to scream about how much he’s hurt her too.

Only she can’t; she’s not supposed to care. 

She glares at the lockers around them, the red color so different compared to the cheery yellow of her own. She waits for him to respond to the insult, the accusation, anything, but after a full minute of no words and no movement, the red door is making her angry. 

Well- angri _er_. “Look at me,” she hisses, surprising herself. 

Apparently she surprises him as well, because the anger-encouraging door closes at last and Riley is faced with confusion-filled blue eyes and a sad frown. “Please stop this,” he pleads. “This isn’t you,” he adds while motioning towards her, like she might misunderstand. 

“You know what isn’t me, _Hop-Along_? Kicking my friends when they’re down.” 

“I-”

“Don’t care,” she interrupts, lying through her teeth. “I don’t care what you’re about to say. I don’t want any excuses and you shouldn’t be apologizing to me.” About this, goes unsaid. “You will fix it, or be prepared for this to be your new normal.”

“But-” Lucas tries again.

Riley is already striding away, ready to appease the horrendous swirling happening in her abdomen by thoughtlessly running laps. She partially turns her head back to him when she gets to the top of the stairs, hand resting on the rail. “Fix it, Ranger Rick,” she repeats. “Judy the Sheep will be a pleasant memory if you fail.”


End file.
